Broken Symmetry
by pinkfloyd1770
Summary: A modern take on the dynamics of the Fire Nation Family. Zuko and Azula, both on the cusp of adulthood, chase old memories and confront lingering regrets while coming to painful realizations about their father's influence and their fragile relationship.
1. Chapter 1

The clock strikes eight and I stop, my foot landing, flat and firm, my arm snapping out, parallel to the ground. I feel the sun on my back, and recall the way the light had moved slowly over the trees and onto me, mixing with and intensifying the heat of my own body, goading it on until a thin, slick film covered my chest, back, and arms, and I knew my routine had started in earnest. I look at the clock again, the minute hand chasing its next neighbor with slow persistence. I'd been standing and catching my breath without realizing it, my heart humming at an almost continuous pace. A few more breaths and I'm heading towards the house, taking the stone path I'd laid out with my uncle the summer before. Father had given me a job and a decision: earn the money and buy the supplies and do the work myself, or hire a crew.

He said, It's appropriate that you learn the value of your money, how to maximize its use and to know when it's possible to do so.

And implicitly, We'll see if you can handle learning to do something useful.

I walk along under the trees and note the hawk that scans the ground near the path. It cocks its eye towards me, holds my gaze for a second, then launches itself off, the thin support branch shuddering in recoil. Leaves fall and I catch one, turning it over in my damp hands, running my thumb along the center vein. It looks perfectly symmetric about that vein, and I find myself becoming more delicate in my grasp, gripping the stem as though it were brittle and dry instead of supple and fresh. I keep it near me, careful not to press it too close to my body, or expose it to the breeze that's blowing in my face. I think of putting it in a book, but I have no idea if it'll preserve or not, and I don't know what it would accomplish either way.

For a moment I stand beside the back door, leaf in hand, turning that question over. I'd have a memento, at least, of the first few weeks of spring. Then I realize, with a shudder, that I'm still wasting time and with a shrug let the leaf fall to the ground. I watch it settle next to the stonework of the patio, shrug one final time, and enter the house. Father isn't around; he's probably in his room, or the library, or out, out where I can't say. And Azula. She went to bed late and I knew she'd done that just so she could sleep through the early morning and not have to greet me without father there. I go upstairs, past her door and down the hall. The light is already filling my room; it's always the morning light, never noon or evening. _I go outside at noon and let the light hit me directly, not moving or thinking_. _We rise with the Sun, we rest with the moon, we live with the Sun, we live in the Light, we..._ I pull the shades all the way up and the room is full. I feel the heat all over again, but it's just warmth and it doesn't goad my body into anything except a slow, rising pleasure which I can't indulge in for long. I sigh and turn from the light, and walk to the bathroom. I shower and shave, using a straight edge razor uncle had given me as soon as I'd developed the need and inclination for it. There's something about my reflection that troubles me, as always. I run my hand across the spot, the opposite hand miming each movement. When I reach the boundary between rough and smooth, pale and dark, both hands stop, and I wonder, with a kind of laughter rising up, which one is acknowledging reality and which one is illusory. _Let it serve as a constant reminder of what you haven't accomplished. And when I do, when I've done..when I've gotten into...I'll be able to..._

Away from the mirror I dress and then head downstairs, wanting nothing except the cup of tea I'd been promising myself since I started training for the day. Uncle told me, when he'd given me the crate of sealed canisters, You should experiment and see what kinds of flavors you can get; tea is temperamental and unpredictable, like a beautiful woman, I'd say. The white leaves can't be boiled or you'll lose the flavor to bitter overtones, the greens are slightly more robust, but I've given you only the best quality, so they should be given cooler water...

And on and on. I'd told him I'd find my own way with the box's contents, and that pleased him. I open the crate and place my thumb and ring finger around the rim of one of the lids and slowly withdraw the container. Taking a knife I break the seal and twist the cap off, taking in first the sight then the scent of the leaves. Dry and twisted and shriveled, like burnt wood and old cinders; they smelled like smoke, and ash, and wood. I could picture them being dried over burning pine, loosing their water and color to the fire and its heat. I lay out a white cloth, place three equally spaced mounds of leaves in a line, and set a cup across from each; the whole kitchen smells like the burnt wood. I fill the kettle, set it to boil, and wait, slowly uncurling myself in increasingly familiar surroundings. I look through the refrigerator and note that my sister still keeps bottles ordered according to decreasing height, cold cuts stacked by type, and fruits and vegetables arranged by criteria I can't quite pin down yet. I mentally slice the pineapple into equal quarters before closing the refrigerator. By now the water has been boiling for a few seconds, and I wonder if that's too long.

Remembering uncle's advice, I let the kettle sit for a moment before adding leaves to the pot and pouring on water. I pull my watch out, set it against the steel lining of the oven, and lean back again. The ticking is audible; the piece should really be on my wrist, but I never keep it there. Father had offered me a pocket watch, but I'd chosen this out of a motive still unknown to me, apparently mixing the positions of the two timepieces. The hand slid past 12 again, and I still hear the ticking. Uncle said three or four minutes. Three or four. I look at the other cups, sitting across from their leaves, like awkward couples. Half past six again. I wonder if I'll have to make two more drafts of water. Azula is asleep and Father is _Out I ran out towards the door and the morning light was pale and grey like the sky The sky is white and the clouds are grey I chase after her and clutch her hand and wrist She looks at me and smiles _out somewhere. At six again. The ticking is oppressing me. Just another minute and I take the watch and shove it back in my pocket, silencing the sound of the hands. I keep time mentally, in a crude, butchered way, stretching a second at first, contracting it later on, like I'm oscillating wildly between reference points without realizing what's happening.

Finally I just give up, grab the pot and pour the tea; it has the pleasing amber color I've come to expect, so I don't mind my lack of patience. I take a drink and wait, the flavor riding just behind the heat, slowly eliciting the response of my pallet until I breath out and the sense comes rushing in and my mouth is full of ash and pine and smoke. I drink again and it's different this time, more bitter, but with a sharpness that I find pleasing. The steam from the cup rises in twisting tendrils, like pale, transparent copies of the leaves, and I let it hit my face and imagine that those leaves are burning and boiling in the cup.

I hear footsteps, coming down the stairs and look up, cup in hand, and moments later I see her, standing there, smile forming slowly _Only it's not a happy smile She reaches down and ki_sses _me again and clutches hard I can feel her tears They're cold and wet and grey I look up and I can't stop._

I take another drink. "Azula."

She steps closer and doesn't sit down, so I look up, and she looks down. "Is that all? We haven't seen each other for months and that's all you have to say to me?"

I shrug, drinking again.

She sighs. "Really, Zuzu, is that what they teach their students at those private universities? I may have to reconsider my options." She traces her chin with the tip of her finger, ending by brushing against the strands of hair hanging along the right side of her face.

I can see the same order in her; the twin strand on the left side, the even shading of her lips, the thickness of her eyebrows. I could split her face in two and reconstitute it with a mirror. She moves past me and over to the counter, stopping in front of the cups.

"Expecting company, are you?"

I grunt in response.

"Your classes must move at break neck pace with that kind of communication. Do the professors all speak in guttural?"

She continues, "It's odd, though. Usually when you're expecting company, you make some kind of effort to prepare for them, beyond just setting the ingredients out in front of them." She shakes her head. "It's possible that whoever you're waiting for doesn't even want tea, or perhaps they're not sure of how to make it properly."

I set my cup down as gently as I can, but some tea still sloshes over the edges, soaking into the red and gold linen. I turn and face her. "Would you like some tea?"

She nods. "I would, actually."

I sigh and put the kettle back, pouring on the water when it reached a boil. This time I didn't even bother to tick out deformed seconds in my mind; I just waited until the the water turned a deep enough amber, and then let the liquid flow. I feel the heat through the porcelain, and only have to relinquish my grasp after holding the cup for a few seconds. My sister takes it with a 'thank you', her fingers encircling its rim so that the container is about an inch above her palm. She sits down across from my seat and takes a sip, barely audible. _Her breath came in softly, sharply, and I heard it because my head was near her's and she said, Said... _

She looks at the cup._"_It's good." I scowl. She sets it down, nails against the table and looks at me. "So that's it, hm?"

I shrug. "I don't know what you want me to say. I talked to you three times over the last six months, twice because you picked up the phone before father, and the other time because you wanted to know..."

"We still talked, didn't we? I told you where I was thinking of applying." She smirks. "Who knows? We might even share a few classes if I decide to head your way."

"I'm sure you're considering that just for the sake of my company." I sit down and return to my cup, the contents of which are reaching a disappointing temperature. The ash and smoke are still swirling, almost imperceptibly.

She's tracing the rim of the cup with her nail. _Her hand traces my cheek and, wet and cold like my face and I can't stop. "_Yes, I can imagine, if this conversation is any indication." She moves the cup to the side, as though testing the smoothness of the two surfaces. "So what are you studying anyway?"

I look at her evenly. "Quantum information theory."

"I wasn't aware they allowed such specialization in the first year of undergraduate study. You don't know yet, do you?"

"Does it really matter to you?"

"Father is probably more _interested, _since he is paying for it, after all."

"I'm riding mostly on scholarship at this point, actually."

"You still have his name, don't you?" I say nothing. "As I was saying, it does matter to me, even if only because it gives me a first hand account of what things are like.

_I_'_d said Father, Father I've been accepted by, I've gotten into...I couldn't contain my_ _accomplishment I had no modesty I flaunted and exposed myself like a drunkard I had no control. _

"No, I don't know. I've been plowing through requirements. I'm actually thankful for them, or else I'd be taking random courses at this point."

The cup is in her hand again but it just stays there, hovering above her palm like an ornament. "Still need father to push you places, do you?"

"Yes, Azula, that's it. And I also need him to wipe my ass and say "blow" when I have a runny nose." _And he looked at me unblinking and unmoving and said Now you can see whether you have enough force of will and competence to make use of an accomplishment. _

"I was only joking, Zuko. No need to get so riled up." She takes another small drink, smiling. "Not that it still isn't fun to wind you up."

I can barely taste it now. I shake my head. "Just..." I close my eyes. "Go. I don't know why you're talking to me."

She sets the cup down, smile gone. "That's unkind of you, Zuko._"_

I interrupt. "Unkind? Well, you still have audacity, I'll give you that." She says nothing and I continue. "You wonder why we haven't spoken? This is why. I don't need this shit. I don't need added irritation from arguing with you every time you get bored, or playful, or whatever else." _And she wasn't there. Grey and cold, she wasn't there and I couldn't stop. "_Where's father, anyway?"

"He didn't say and I didn't ask." She shifts the cup again. " You'd talk to him, though, wouldn't you? I mean, you want to talk to him."

"Yeah, obviously. That's why I came back for recess instead of just going to a friend's or getting some temp job." I drink again. It's cooling, becoming more bitter, but my pallet is still reacting positively.

"A conversation with father."

"You can't stop, can you? When have I ever had a conversation with father? Talking to him was like talking a teacher after class because they thought you were slacking off. Except the teacher could throw you out of the building and change the locks."

"He never did that."

I just drink again, this time almost loosing to the rotten ashes.

"Why did you set three cups out?"

"Force of habit. And uncle."

"Oh so uncle taught you manners?"

"No, but he taught me that I should always have enough tea out to jump start conversation."

She sighs. "You're talking in circles, Zuko, but that's all right. Why didn't you just go to uncle? You always did before. He's even an academic himself, so he actually has useful experience, for once."

"Philosophy, he teaches philosophy. Focuses on the comparison between far eastern and modern western. Anyway, _Father said, Philosophy is the pursuit of fools who try to dress up reality with abstruse rules because they can't contend with their own short comings and doubts. There are no rules in human reality, just expected modes of behavior, and those who can't follow them are cast aside and trampled. "_he's on sabbatical, and I'm not in the mood for a phone call."

"So in lieu of uncle, you've come to father."

"No. And stop asking questions you already know the answers to."

"It wasn't a question." She moved the cup until it was directly in front of her. "Well, since you're not in a talkative mood, at least not when I'm present, I'll leave you to your meditations." She stands, straightening her shirt as she does so. Blue against the black of her hair. "Regardless of what you think, I am glad you decided to come home, and not just because you get riled easily." She stops mid turn. "And thank you for the tea. It was pleasing." And she's away.

I look at her cup, nearly full and still steaming. Then down at mine, neglected, three quarters gone. I take her cup, drink, exhale, and can't make out the taste like before. She always...I take another drink, and another, and it's gone.


	2. Chapter 2

I see the remains before I've cleared the lawn, just a smear of red across the asphalt, the body tossed aside like a misused doll, torn and limp, almost on the opposite yard. The sun hasn't yet illuminated the scar enough to give it anything more than a dull sheen; there's still a cleanliness to the carnage. But the delivery man standing to the side, his hands tight and his voice low in a rapid mutter may as well be in the center of a slaughter house. I walk past him just as he looks up, face stilling for a moment before collapsing again.

"I didn't do it with intention."

The mailbox is empty. I close it and turn to him; he's still standing in the same spot, now wringing his hands. I walk around the blood, wondering if it will dry before the sun hits it full on, and stop in front of him, holding out my hand.

"My newspaper."

He doesn't respond at first. He just lowers his hands stares at me as though I can't speak properly.

"If you can't drive properly, at least do your job properly and give me my newspaper."

That breaks him out of his stupor long enough for him to enter his car and hand me the paper, wrapped up like something out of a butcher's shop.

"Thank you."

"It's...it's not yours is it?"

I turn back and it's as though nothing happened in the time it took him to get the paper. "No. I don't own a cat." I remember learning from one. The mouse, the branch, the leaves. Mother was there then, briefly, and father, always close, deceptively in the background. And Zuko, moving without noticing.

He relaxes, letting his hands move to his sides, his face to stop its sharp perturbations, and his voice to cease its low trill. He readies to ask a question, but I intercept first.

"Though, your car is nearly in the center of the street, as is the blood streak." I pause to walk next to the offending mark, the color reminding me of the shade we display on our family crest. If only the street were darker and the sun more brilliant, the whole familial palette would be on display, a natural, raw canvas. As is, his expression draws me away from my initial disappointment; there's a spot just below the chest, near the sternum, where a well placed blow, a solid jab from a fist, or a light sidekick, would elicit a practically identical expression. I let him recover and attempt to counter.

"Well, I.." He clears his throat and swallows. "I guess I was going too fast. It's early and that happens sometimes." He shrugs. "The thing just ran out. I didn't see it, or wasn't paying attention, and..." A gesture to where I'm standing.

So he parried and now he's in a defensive position. "Interesting." I walk away from the blood in an arc, out then in, as though I'm circling. His hands tense again, then relax, but his fingers are still draw in slightly.

"Do you now who it belonged to?"

"No." I move towards the body, the light having become more intense since I arrived. A single fly is already hoovering around the tattered fur,moving up, down, then back, as though inspecting the extent of the decay. Scavengers and opportunists. I kneel. My shadow passes over the corpse and makes it dim again. The scatters and returns. I see another stream of blood, quickly congealing, pooling around what's left of the neck where the head nearly came off. Now there's just a thin string of muscle running from near the base of the skull to the rest of the body. I frown and look to the chin, noticing that it suffered an impact which took most of it clean off, destroying the curve of the jawbone and my ability to see the head as something real; the really looks like that of a doll's. The eyes, golden and still seeming to perceive me, look off past the house, as though watching for birds passing by. I brush against the nose and still feel a thin moisture. Black fur, lithe body...the Lancasters. The cat with the sensitive neck. Nails past fur and into flesh, twitching and growling. The other one I never touched, not even briefly or nearly, but this one came to me, without caution or prejudice. Now it will never feel its neck again, or anything else, or...Ironic, I think, as the fly moves near my hand. I lash out, cutting across the air and capturing the insect and feeling it vibrate in my palm, faster and faster. I'm still for a time, kneeling and looking at the cat, fly in my palm. To the side I know the man is again using his hands like release valves, but I'm not moved. The fly is like a heartbeat in my hand, though impossibly fast for an animal of significant size. I slowly contract my palm. The beating increases until it's just a humming against my palm. A bit farther. And it stops. I open my palm and drop the small corpse next to the large, rising after I do so.

Oh yes, he's still in the fighting stance, his hands at his sides and his face in painfully controlled neutrality. He looks expectant.

"Lancasters." I gesture towards their home, though he must already know. I take the path along the blood again, stopping where I stood before. He smiles. Another strike, though I'm prepared and curve my own mouth.

"Oh. I like the Lancasters. Known them for a while."

"Really? They're not very nice people. In fact, I've only spoken to them on three different occasions and each time neither of them even bothered to ask after myself or my family." I shrug. "Perhaps they're just blunt and realistic. After all, how many people do we really care enough about to be genuinely interested in their welfare? I laugh lightly, and the gesture is returned, though awkwardly and without gusto.

I look back at his car. "Well, I suppose I should stop chatting in the street and let you be on your way. I'm sure you can tell the Lancasters what happened to their cat once you reach their house." I smile and turn away. He clears his throat and I stop before the sound has subsided.

"Yes?"

"Well, you see. I hate to inconvenience you, but...my car isn't working. I mean, after I hit the cat I stopped to check and see if it was...alive, and then it wouldn't start."

"I see." I glance at my watch. "Tell me, what time do you usually deliver my paper?"

"Six thirty, usually."

"Usually. Here it is five past six and you've been here with me for at least ten minutes."

"I've been coming early. What's your point?"

"No point. Just an observation."

"May I use your phone?"

"I suppose you could." I take the phone from my pocket and hand it to him. He dials the office and explains the situation, not missing a detail he told me. I walk around the car, examining the tires and the first few feet of asphalt before and after them. He's finished by now and I walk back and take the phone from him.

"It'll be a few minutes. Thank you."

I incline my head. "I'm glad to be of help. Oh, but there's something I'm wondering, just between the two of us."

"Yes?"

"Why were you driving so quickly between stops? You were early, and even with a regular schedule, you wouldn't have been delayed long enough to be late."

"I wasn't..."

"Please. Did you examine the corpse? Its head is attached by a thread of muscle no thicker than a lock of my hair, and the tip its jaw is cleaved cleanly off." As well as the of its face. I pause for a moment longer, my hand tracing my own chin. "Oh yes. And cats are fast, if I remember correctly, though as I said I've never owned one, so I could be wrong." I leaned in closer to his paling face, ready to divulge a conspiracy. "They could secretly be sloths." My eyes shift from side to side, warily, looking for eavesdroppers.

His face. It's a true blow to that special area. A hard kick. A trained fist.

"It was an accident. What are you accusing me of?"

"Nothing. You're apparently accusing yourself of something."

"I did not do it with intention. I get distracted. I move quickly, thinking about other things. It's a bad habit, and I'm sorry this happened."

"Are you?" I speak quietly. "Tell me, did you stop as soon as you realized what you'd hit."

"Of course."

"And did you realize that the car was broken only after you stepped out to look?"

"Yes! I told you."

I shake my head. "You could have pushed the car back a few feet. It would have been more convincing."

"I didn't..."

I jab again. "Did you regret?"

"What?"

"This." I gesture towards the doll of a body. "Whatever your intention, the end result is the same. Do you regret it?"

"I'm sorry. I said so. I didn't want this to happen." He gestured in no direction, hands beyond mere contortions.

"I don't doubt that. I don't think you wanted the car to break down when it did. Too bad it's so old; you could have just asked to borrow someone else's and that would have done the job. But would you take it back?"

"I told you, damn it."

"You could have gone to them, you know, the Lancasters whom you're so fond of. They do like that cat. I see her with it in the garden, going for walks, hunting. She enjoys watching it rather much, I think. Even he would take it along with him when he sat in the garden or went around the neighborhood. It will be missed."

"They aren't very pleasant people," the man muttered.

"No, I suppose they aren't. Though they did like that cat." I wonder if they'll like its corpse.

"I didn't intend to do it, but I went early because because sometimes I'd see the cat, and I'd drive faster to scare it away. I don't know why. I never had anything against them, they never did anything to me." He shakes his head lightly.

There's no such thing as casual cruelty. It's committed with careful intent or not at all. But he's conceded the match, abandoned his stakes and I have nothing left to hope for. "Don't bother telling the Lancasters. I'll let them know." The look, the look on her face. "Thank you for the newspaper." I turn and move up the drive. If I kicked the head, the fake dead head, I can see it sailing along the grass, droplets of blood somersaulting around, staining green with read and glittering in the sun like liquid gems. Red, red, I see the red. Did he regret? I didn't get the answer, I didn't get the cause. I saw black and I saw blood.

Once inside I enter the study and remove the paper from its casing as if it really is a piece of freshly sliced meat, careful to unfold it across the face of the desk. I might be looking at a blueprint, though I realized a long time ago it's really my horoscope come to print in exquisite detail. I don't even have to scan the contents of the paper to realize that today I'll be in for a test, if a straightforward one. The rules are simple and unchanged, only the details are slightly altered, and as I read the article wedged below the bold print title, I find myself looking forward to the question at hand. They're going to sink, I mutter, slowly folding the paper and breathing out to relax myself. The morning may move up after all.

I glance at my watch, the sound urging me on, adding momentum to my steps as I move down the hall and towards the dinning room where father is already seated with a paper spread before him. His Financial Times to my Wall Street. I bring myself to the other side of the table, knowing that he never looks up while I sit down, place the napkin across my lap and acknowledge the plates before me. And he had the cook prepare breakfast today.

Good morning, father." I incline my head. Salmon. Pink and fresh and smoked. Sliced cantaloupe and what? Green tea. I can't object.

He only returns the second gesture, the paper crinkling as he does so. I bring my own paper out, slowly and with exaggerated care, displaying only the first page to myself. Rereading the same story. He knows it too. It's as much a game now as a test, and like both in equal measure. The paper crinkles again as he lowers it, eyes at the same level but now focused on me. He's more casual today, just a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled almost to the elbows, fitting snugly around each forearm, tightly when he moves and expands the muscles, barely containing the change in volume.

I look up and he's still silent, fingers entwined beneath his chin, eyes on the print beneath him. I glance back down, the story complete in my mind a second time. There are other stories, but they can't possibly be what he's waiting for. I pick up my cup and drink, but that only give me seconds. I look at father again and clear my throat.

He doesn't look up. "Your brother is coming home."

I stare, cup frozen in my had. It's early, it's...no I suppose it would be time, time to see him again though he never said anything, neither did father, so he couldn't have known. Then the food...I glance around at the plates again. So Zuko is wreaking havoc from hundreds of miles away.

"Today, or tomorrow?"

"Today, in the evening. I have nothing else to say on the matter." He's back to the paper then, though I doubt he really left. I turn back to my own, the food before me forgotten. And the paper's prediction? Wrong, apparently, but Zuko would burst in like this, first tipping father off balance and in turn me. I wonder if it was purposeful. He'd derive no pleasure from something like that. First the cat, now...Well I still have that expression to look forward to. I could make the moment as fantastic culmination, build up to it, put on a painstaking show; I could make myself cry on a whim...

The paper rustles and I'm torn away. Father brings the paper up and unfolds it, spreading out and revealing another act of the fiscal tragedy, the theater spelled out and emphasized in black print and red charts. Red. The color of slaughter and death and occasional triumph. I lean forward, my breath quickening. "You've already read about some variation of this in the other paper, but it's appropriate you have it from an area that's more explicitly affected. We'll discuss this in the evening." He turns to his plate then, eating in practiced silence.

I read the paragraphs I can see, piecing together the main points from what I've read elsewhere. There are protesters on an opposite panel, the visual aid to some other story, their faces frozen in their indignation, twisted and writhing, screaming like infants. I see one with dark hair and bright eyes, face calm but sullen. He'd do it. Not for something this absurdly vain, but if he believed in the cause, if he thought there was "honor" in rebellion and stoicism, he'd do it and get himself spread all over the paper, showing anyone who still bothered to read it how indignant he was. And father would treat it like decay.

I finally turn to the salmon, splitting the soft flesh with my fork and ripping into it, finding the flavor mild enough to warrant concern for its preparation, but a second bite assuages my doubts, and I'm almost glad for my brother's interruption. He would. Because it would be the right thing to do, but there's no such thing as right or wrong, just the ability and the inclination and in most cases he has neither. And if it's honorable? Well honor is just another means to an end expect it's dressed up prettily and ornately so no one looks underneath to see the shriveled corpse. That never occurs to Zuko. Father. It's always father. What father did with metal and heat wasn't right or wrong, it was father being himself. He had the ability and at that particular point the inclination. Zuko pushed and father pushed back and if he can't see that he's not only an outcast but a child. The blood, Oh yes father had the blood on his hands, had it physically and apparently still does metaphorically. Uncle would say the latter is worse because it means he hasn't tried to make amends and seek redemption but Uncle says that making tea is like courting a beautiful woman and I say what's done is done, and if it had been my face...

I tear the last piece of salmon in two, take one piece, swallow, and finish the other with the rest of the tea. Father has since finished, and he's sitting in his typical schooled silence, examining the glossy pages of a magazine that I imagine he's procured purely for the purpose of keeping himself occupied in just such a situation. I fold the paper but make no move to return it to him. Leaning back slightly, I glance out the window and see the garden illuminated in orange and gold. Roses. White tinged with flame, red turned a lighter shade. The touch, the texture. I'll be out in the afternoon, to replace those wilting in my room. I see a wren fly and sing and wonder about the hawk I've seen occupying the trees in the back grove.

"I've been considering where to go once I'm finished." I don't turn, not yet.

"Have you?" And he doesn't look up.

"I filled the folders you gave me. Four of them, if I remember. Everything is there. Deadlines, requirements, cost." I add the final as a way of rounding the list out.

"And have you decided what you'll concentrate in? Some humanity, perhaps?" He threatens to smile, the danger evaporating at the last moment and leaving me with the telltale expression of amusement on my face, the jape and its target not lost on me.

"No, I don't think that's in the plan."

He looks at me now, magazine forgotten. "Plan as you want, I have no doubt you'll be admitted wherever you choose to apply, and if you continue as you have been, you shouldn't have any difficulties." He returns to the magazine, and I rise after a moment as though on the current of his words.

"If I may be excused?"

He nods.

I move to the kitchen, remembering the day and conscious of the time. The list is in its usual place on the counter, written in father's invariably neat hand in bold black letters. I examine it out of habit, not knowing why he bother's writing one up anymore. It's just a ritual by this point. It started, he started it, they started, father started it.

He wasn't crying, his eyes watered but it wasn't crying, it was soundless. I only looked once and he doesn't avert his gaze he held and turned my gaze, his eyes narrowed by a contorted face. And the mark. There's the mark on the other side, bright and red, not the family red, a horrendous ape at symmetry. Father walked back and only glanced once, pen and paper in hand. "We need some groceries. I noticed this morning there's no fruit or milk in the refrigerator. I've put that and some other things here. You shouldn't have any trouble finding them." The threat floated across his face, almost surfacing as his eyes shifted again, back and back, and I felt it then, alone and focused upon as that danger danced past me and away and it was gone. I nodded and took the paper, placed it in my pocket and walked. I glanced again and the contortion was gone, and his eyes stared back, limpid and wet. He didn't speak but he asked and I walked, I saw him cradle his arm and feel his face but that's impossible. And outside I smelt them, the roses and the lilac.

The paper is forgotten in my pocket by the time I'm in the bathroom, straightening my hair again. I take the small bottle in the corner and apply some to my cheeks and neck. It's so light someone would have to be within inches to smell it, but I don't care. I dab my fingers and leave the bathroom, heading towards the opposite end of the hall. He closed his door after he left, and I opened it just so it could ventilate, but those things never occurred to him. There's the usual light everywhere, the gold and it's illuminating the petals of the orchid sitting on the window ledge, white and purple and black. I take the pitcher and fill it with cold water, just the right amount that I'd learned with from experience, and pour. Am I making tea? It's absurd. He hadn't been asking for a flower, but I'd given it anyway, after he'd been allowed to retreat to his room and nurse himself back into a more usual melancholy, and I'd entered without a sound of warning, crossed the room and placed the plant on the sill, its instructions attached.

I set the the pitcher aside and examine the plant. Its leaves are thick and waxy, spreading out like organic paddles to capture as much light as possible. The shading of the stem is a copy of the colors staining the white of the petals, a dark purple that reminds me of wine. Thin and purple. He couldn't take care of it. One week in and the petals were wilting and shriveling. Watering hadn't occurred to him either. Walking in while he and Mai were on the bed, conversing and touching, I'd taken the water and poured, ignoring his protests and Mai's silent objections. Then uncle. Uncle had commented on its beauty and delicacy, how it should be properly managed. He'd hinted at Mai's interest, but Zuko just shook his head and muttered my name and Uncle was silent, and his look...I'd have to draw it physically to reproduce it with any accuracy. It had taken uncle, and my interventions weren't necessary. Because uncle thought it was beautiful.

My fingers brush the petals and the leaves. I can smell the lilac and move away to the desk, opening the draws and brushing the papers. There's a latch at the back of the bottom drawer, and just the right amount of pressure will push it open. I ignore it, just ghosting over it with the tips of my fingers before exiting the room. Let him think what he wants.


End file.
